As the United States and China participate in a commercial war promoted by steep tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and counteractors by President Xi Xinping, a sector that could be deeply affected and, in turn, have a disproportionate.
The United States imports 75 percent of its essential medications. The Trump administration has begun its research on medicines imports and the active ingredients necessary to do them, saying that the lack of that in the United States raises a threat of national security. As also threatened sectoral rates, which could vary from 7.5 percent to 100 percent, in addition to the 145 percent current in their place in China.
While pharmaceutical products have been exempt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs so far, it is not clear how long it will last, especially with possible sector levies in the pipe.
In the immediate term, there is isolation between intense prices and what consumers will pay when they go to collect their medications in their local pharmacy.
Unlike other goods, pharmaceutical prices for consumers are not subject to the same instant fluctuations of the market. The complex supply chain throughout the pharmaceutical industry means that there is a delay between tariffs and the impact they could have on patients.
At the same time, there are stock batteries in almost every step of the supply chain. The wholesalers have their own, as are the pharmaceutical giants and even the federal government.
“Many of these medications, especially those that are, in forms of pills, are quite stable for a long time,” Bruce and Lee, a professor of health policy at the School of Graduates of Public Health and Health Policy Cuny, told Cuny.
In the short term, pharmaceutical companies and medical care providers can eat an increase in costs, as lasted by the COVID-19 pandemic. That gives time to pharmaceutical companies and commercial groups to defend the administration to guarantee the exceptions of continuous rates.
India supplies approximately half or all generic medicines used in the US.
One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical giants said it worries that any rate drives prices and damages patient care.
In a shareholders meeting, Michel Demare, president of the Board of Astrazeneca, said: “We still firmly believe that medications should be exempt from any type of tariffs because in the end it is only damaging the health systems of patients and restriction.”
Astrazeneca did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for additional comments.
Eli Lilly and Johnson and Johnson echoed similar Conerns. In the last six months, the three companies have promised multimillion -dollar investments to increase manufacturing, as well as research and development in the United States.
But pharmaceutical giants can bite the cost just for so long. The fall in the prices of actions for pharmaceutical giants means that they need to find other ways to increase the price of actions to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders. Experts say they can do it by renegotiating the prices of high medications, depending on medications. That causes a downstream effect that will lead to higher insurance premiums in all areas and high prices for Americans who depend on these medications daily.
“The demand for many pharmaceutical products is not flexible. This is not a consumer’s good,” Lee said. “When you impose something that increases the cost, such as the rate, you really can’t change demand … and finally hurt patients.”
A socioconomic division
According to a report by the supply chain analysis report, it is published last week, the United States depends on China for up to 80 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients. For generic antibiotics, in particular, dependence is much higher in 90 percent.
Because China disproportionately more generic drugs, which are 80 to 85 percent cheaper than their marijuana alternatives, China tariffs will harm the most difficult low -income communities.
“If there is a place where you save money, it is generic, and there it is exactly where the increases will be. Generic companies work on the thinner margins, and they are simply not in a position to absorb [that]”Michael Abrams, partner of Numberf and Associates, a global health consulting firm, told Al Jazeera.
Recent analysis of the ING Financial Services Company found that even a 25 percent pharmaceutical tariff could force cancer patients to pay up to $ 2,000 more for a 24 -week supply.
Tariffs could force generic manufacturers to retire from the US market completely, says Tom Kraus, vice president of government relations of the American Pharmaceutical Society of the Health System (ASHP) to Al Jazeera.
“Imposing tariffs on mediations and their ingredients could force generic drug manufacturers with profit margins already thin to leave the US market for a given medication, the result of drug scarcity for US patients,” Kraus said.
About 90 percent of the medications prescribed in American pharmacies are generic or biosimilar (which means ingredients that have similar effects), according to a report by the association of accessible medicines published in February.
“It will cause many reverberations because some will collect the tab. This will result in a narrower percentage of medication costs is covered by insurance companies and, therefore, this load pushed patients and consumers,” Lee added.
Americans are already struggling to achieve the costs of medical care as it is. One in three Americans says that they cannot take mediations that are prescribed due to cost, and 11 percent of Americans say they cannot meet their medical care costs, with a greater load for Hispanic adults with 18 percent in general.
The Congress Budget Office estimates that 7.7 percent of Americans have no insurance, which means that their medical costs are out of pocket. Even for those who have insurance, public health experts believe that insurance premiums will increase if Trump advances with pharmaceutical tariffs.
“They will extend that among anyone who pays for sure as a whole. That is the whole concept of insurance,” Lee said.
More exhaustive drugs occur in the United States or in Europe. Those could also be more expensive. There is currently a 10 percent rate in place that affects thesis drugs, but that could be higher when the country’s specific rates, currently at rhythm, enter.
The drugs that leave Europe are more of the medications admitted by the brand. Zepbound, Eli Lilly’s weight loss medication, for example, is performed in Ireland. If tariffs are activated there, pocket costs for US patients in Zepbound could cost up to $ 1,086.37 for a one -month supply, in contrast as low as $ 25 with insurance.
Supply chain tension
In February, the American Hospital Association (AHA), in a letter that requested tariff exceptions for pharmaceutical products, told him that he is concerned that the taxes worsened the efforts of the existing supply chain.
“Despite continuous efforts to build the National Supply Chain, the United States Health System is based on international sources for many medications and devices necessary to serve patients and protect our health workers. It could reduce the availability of these measurements and supplies that save life in the US. UU.” The commercial group said in a letter to the White House. “American suppliers import many cancer and cardiovascular, immunosuppressive, antibiotics and antibiotics combined from China. For many patients, a temporary interruption in their access to these necessary medications could with a significant risk.” “”
The AHA rejected the request for Al Jazeera of additional comments.
“Medical care has a very elaborate logistics chain, and obviously, it varies from one product to another, but some of them are very complicated,” added Abrams de Numberof and Associates.
For example, some API undergo two or three different processes and not all are in the same place before they come to the United States to join the final product, he explained.
“When you take all these relationships and throw them into the air and see how they lower, it inevitably leads to the interruption in the supply,” he continued.
There are more than 104 shortage of active drugs in the United States, including common antibiotics such as amoxicillin. China is one of the three major drug exporters in the world, and the United States is the largest importer.
Another concern about the extreme unit of the United States in China is that the country’s API market is expected to only grow 7.8 percent in the next five years, according to the Mercorio Intelligence market research firm.
Washington’s action call
Duration COVID-19 pandemic, when trade stopped essentially, there were Conerns that the United States did not have enough measurements in its strategic reserve to handle a high temporal. Both Republicans, such as the Senator of Arkansas, Tom Cotton and the Democrats, such as former President Joe Biden, have requested a lower dependence on China for pharmaceutical products as a result.
“When it has supply chains that are not diversified or depend on only participular channels, then that supply chain is fragile and there is a risk,” Lee said.
There are long leg suggestions of the prominent Chinese voices, including the economist Li Dooki, who have asked the leadership in Beijing that reduces antibiotic exports to the United States as a tool in a commercial war.
But experts agree that Trump’s rapid approach does not give companies time to prepare and, therefore, puts patients at risk.
The Ashp told the White House in a February letter that tariffs “must be applied selective and fit with other incentives to increase national production and promote a stable supply chain.”
“You can’t do it in the 18 months you’re trying to get it, okay? And it’s not exactly a four -year -old company,” Abram added.
Some companies have said that they will bring more pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs in the United States. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced an investment of $ 50 billion in the US. In the next five years, which will include funds to build research and development facilities and expand existing manufacturing operations.
Roche follows Novartis, who announced that he would invest $ 23 billion in the next five years to expand his US infrastructure. That includes thousands of new jobs in seven facilities that will manufacture medications and API.
But building and obtaining plants such as this in production will not solve the immediate problem, according to Ashp.
“It is important to keep in mind that the construction of a new pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity will take several years. Meanwhile, tariffs run the risk that the highest prices for THSE can approve greater costs to consumers, and the shortage of generic medicines that cannot be”.
The White House did not respond to the request for comments from Al Jazeera.